More than 500 people came to Viadrina and joined us for the Fake News Festival – and we are still a little overwhelmed.

Thank you for joining the discussions, getting involved, speaking up, disagreeing, and bringing in new perspectives. And most importantly: thank you for being there with us.

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A huge thank-you goes to our three keynote speakers, Ramak Molavi Vasse’i, Dr Romy Jaster, and Maximilian Fröhlich. We would also like to thank our panellists Theresia Crone, Prof. Dr Nella Sayatz, Dr Jonas Fegert, Dr Jörg Treffke, and Riccardo Vaccaro, as well as author Kristin Siebert. With your perspectives on fake news, AI regulation, understanding AI, and digital violence in everyday life, you were everything we could have wished for at this festival.

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Our research programme was shaped by Prof. Dr Simone Maxand, Dr Jonas Fegert, Dr Veronika Solopova, Prof. Dr Jan-Erik Schirmer, Prof. Dr Johannes Weberling, Prof. Dr Miglė Bareikytė, Dr Elizaveta Kuznetsova, Prof. Dr Vaclav Stetka, Prof. Dr Felix Weinhardt, Dr Erik Hermann, Anton Gollwitzer, Prof. Dr Philipp Hacker, Prof. Dr Julia Hörnle, Chris Marsden, Prof. Dr Daniel Illger, and Saskia Johanna Rauhut. Thank you for showing us how disinformation and AI can be approached from a wide range of research perspectives – and how analysis, questions, and new ways of looking at things can lead to concrete ideas and solutions.

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And then, of course, there were our workshops. They were a central part of the festival. A heartfelt thank-you to Elisabeth Prosch, Linda Walter, Simon Liedtke, Rene Pachmann, Prof. Dr Charlotte Köhler, Marcin Łączyński, Radosław Wałkuski, Klaudia Kazana, Niki Kasis, Franziska Wulschke-Paczkowski, Franziska Liebetanz, the @all collective, Uta Kurzwelly, Dr Bonny Brandenburger, Julia Gogolewska, Nicola Schäfer, Sparda-Bank, Martin F. Seng, Kai Seiler, Roksana Rybicka, Michalina Lorych, Paul Welke, Laura Bannan-Fischer, Dr Christian Hochmuth, Johanna Hiebl, Dr Sebastian Richter, Marta Wiewiórska, topio e. V., and Jochen Spangenberg. You brought your knowledge, your ideas, and so much energy. You created spaces where people could experiment, ask questions, discuss, and learn together – and you shared your topics in such an engaging, accessible, and convincing way that everyone wanted to join in.

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A special thank-you goes to our cooperation partners: the European News School, the Friends of the European University Viadrina, and “Demokratie leben!”. Thank you for making this festival possible together with us, for supporting it, and for helping us carry it forward. And a huge thank-you to everyone who supported us in Frankfurt (Oder), across the region, and beyond: Climate+Tech, Präsenzstelle Fürstenwalde, Kleist Museum, Frankfurt (Oder) City and Regional Library, the City of Frankfurt (Oder), MehrGenerationenHaus MIKADO, BLOK O, Sparda-Bank, and Frankfurt (Oder) Adult Education Centre.

You carried the festival beyond the university and right into the heart of the city. Thanks to you, new places, people, and perspectives became part of the programme. That is exactly what we had hoped for: open, connected, and not limited to the campus.

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And then there are the people without whom absolutely nothing would have worked: our students Alina Yevtushenko, Elsa Gashi, Bardha Osaj, Angjelina Hebibi, Viktoria Klonowska, Anastasiia Khodakova, Atharva Dubey, Ilya Wolff, Mina Nikolova, Arita Hyseni, Pham Nguyen, Ngoc Phuong Thao Doan, Aishan Rustamova, Franciszek Gabara, Krzystof Krowicki, Jost Flügel, Isatou Sarr, and Meryem Blut.  Thank you – you did not simply support us; you played an essential part in shaping the entire festival.

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And above all: thank you to everyone who made this festival so thoughtful, open, warm, and full of life.

We truly could not have wished for anything better.

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Ira & Charlotte